


Not a repetition but a rhyme

by Mysana



Series: Harry Potter Short Fics [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble, Gen, Horcruxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 16:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15755679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysana/pseuds/Mysana
Summary: Horcruxes are evil and bad and make good people do bad things. The Dursleys weren’t even good.





	Not a repetition but a rhyme

Petunia and Vernon Dursely have always been perfectly normal, whether they wanted to be so or not. Of course, normal does not mean good or bad. It means average, ordinary. Most people, are not good. Or bad. Most people care more about people they know than strangers. Most people are nosey and tell lies (sometimes). Most people cry when their friends are hurt and feel smug when their enemies get their due. It’s not because they are bad. It’s because theyare normal.

 

Petunia, regardless of stretched out appearance and incessant gossip, was ordinary. She loved her son. She loved her husband. She missed her sister. She listened in on the neighbours and looked down on Ms.Figg and her cats. Because she was normal. She wasn’t particularly interesting, nor was she evil.

 

Vernon was also normal, even with his weight and tendency to yell. He never made flower petals change colour. Teacher never raved about him. He’d gotten average grade and got an average job and married an average woman.

 

Horcruxes, however, are not normal. Horcruxes are evil and bad and make good people do bad things. The Dursleys weren’t even good. They were average. But they took in small Harry Potter because for all Petunia had resented her sister, she had also loved her.They meant well when they took him in. But, they had no protection from the evil of the Horcrux hiding in the boy and they grew to resent him.

 

Petunia’s loved of Lily grew twisted and bitter. Vernon started to resent Harry. Dudley grew up knowing that Harry Hunting was good and being anything other than normal was bad.

 

Maybe it was because, despite being a Muggle, Petunia recognised magic better than most. Maybe she fought against the way the magic she didn’t see was making her bad. Maybe that’s where the Dursely’s became obsessed with normality. Maybe it was the Horcrux.

 

Regardless.

 

In this world, the Horcrux was a sliver of a soul that grew and became part of young Harry Potter. And it changed them both. Because Voldemort was only a fraction of a man, but he was older. More established. Harry, on the other hand was more. He was a whole soul, but he was also a baby.

 

So, both souls changed, and became more. And Harry became stronger, he was more than one person. He knew (somewhere far in the back of his mind) that magic was real. That he had it. This Harry resented the Dursely’s a little bit more. He used a little bit more accidental magic. He was a little bit colder, and crueler. But he still loved. He still cared.

 

Voldemort could never love. He was born under the effects of a love potion and was therefore damaged. But by becoming part of Harry, he changed. He was weaker (purely because he was now part of a child). But he also cared more. He resented the Dursely’s not only because they were muggle and they were mean, but because he could understand what it could have been like. He could be like Dudley. He could be loved, and cared for, pampered in the way kids should. (Dudley was pampered a bit more than he should, really.)

 

So Voldemort and Harry became one (and a bit) of a single soul. So Harry grew up wth another voice in his head besides his own.

 

Not in a creepy way. In the way all people do. In the way that some people want to be tough and cute. There are different options in every situation, and the horcrux provided its views on the matter. In the way that you have your closest friends telling you what they would think of your actions. Not in a freakish way. In a normal way.

 

For the most part though, nothing changed.

 

The Dursley’s still locked him in a closet. He still wore hand-me-down clothes that never fit. He still was starved and resented. But this time… This time he was a little less lonely. A little more clever. He learned how to open the lock from the inside earlier. Harry learned that snakes were friends.

 

In this world, not much changed, but some of it did.

**Author's Note:**

> I had ideas for this becoming a full fic which I might write someday, but figured I might as well share what I have.


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